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On Tuesday, August 4th, Neflix announced on their blog that they would begin offering new parents a progressive parental leave policy:
...Today we're introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child's birth or adoption.
The Boston Globe picked up the story earlier today and compared Netflix's new policy to Google's, which offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 12 weeks of "baby bonding" time. The Boston Globe also notes:
The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries among 185 nations and territories that hadn't imposed government-mandated laws requiring employers to pay mothers while on leave with their babies, according to a study released last year by the United Nations' International Labor Organization.
This new policy "covers all of the roughly 2,000 people working at [Netflix's] Internet video and DVD-by-mail services, according to the Los Gatos, California, company."
However, not all media voices are pleased with this change. Suzanne Venker, author of the recent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Parents Are Choosing To Stay Home, writes for Time :
Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface.
What does Soylent think? Should companies offer new parents lengthy paid leave after they bring a new bundle of joy into the world, or do generous policies do more harm than good?
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Thursday August 06 2015, @09:23PM
The solution to that is to eliminate maternity leave completely
While at it, might as well eliminate pensions, unemployment handouts, disability handouts, etc. and replace everything with a Basic Income.
Greatest way to cut out the huge bureaucratic overhead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @02:25AM
A basic income would eliminate the need for unemployment insurance and food stamp programs, and paired with single-payer healthcare it would significantly improve everyones' lives and the consumer economy (buying products) and worker economy (buying labor), however pensions are something you earn through work, so there's no legitimate reason to scrap them. Disability pay probably couldn't be eliminated entirely because even with a basic income, people will want to work for extra money, however certain disabilities render people completely unemployable so there should still be some kind of way for them to earn extra compensation (in addition to already covering the biggest cost in their lives - medical costs). It could be argued that people unable to work due to mental disabilities could be said to not have the mental capacity to need additional funds, however if physical disabilities are the reason, there should definitely be a way to earn extra money.